Saturday, September 16, 2017

"Why Do You Want To Do That?"

A few years ago a friend of mine asked me if I was able to help them move house. I asked them when they were moving and I came to see that I was available on that day.

I think I had already helped two friends move house already that year, so I was well-prepared. Shortly after I had been asked, I started to think about what it would be like and I wasn’t expecting too much.It’s All the SameBut then why would I, I was helping a friend to move house; it was not as if I was going on holiday. Even so, I was happy to be there for a friend who needed my help.

When I arrived at her old house, I met her son and her nephew. And while I had heard her talk a lot about her son, I didn’t know much about her nephew.

A Pleasant SurpriseAs the day went by I had a number conversations with her nephew, Wain, and I couldn’t believe that I had actually met someone like this while I was helping a friend move house. In a way, it was like clearing out an old barn and finding a brand new Ferrari inside.

This was someone who was down to earth, friendly and easy going, and we had an instant connection. I found out that he was a photographer, amongst other things, which made me think about the kind of work that we could do together in the future.

A BlessingIt wasn’t long before we got together again, and this was when I started to find out that this was someone who had incredible depth. If was someone who looked for talented footballers for a living, I would say that I had found the real deal.

I soon came to see that nothing was off-limits with this person; he was open-minded and anything but judgemental. It was clear that I had met someone who wasn’t happy to live on the surface of life.

Going Straight InAnd as I like to look deeper into life myself, I was incredibly grateful that our paths had crossed. There were moments when I expressed my view on something and he went into the reasons why he didn’t agree with what I said.

Also, when I said that I wanted to do something, he would ask me why that was and what I was looking to gain from doing it. Up until this point I had asked myself why I wanted to do something, but this didn’t always take place.

An Important QuestionAt first I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond; if anything, I felt a bit taken aback. However, as time passed and we spent more time together, I started to see how necessary it was to ask myself why I wanted to do something.

It can be easy to want to do something without actually thinking about why this is, or to have a false idea about what will happen if a certain path is followed. Through taking a step back and looking into the reasons why we want to achieve something, we may find that we don’t actually want to achieve something.​The Right TrackIf we do this, it could end us saving us a lot of time, money and energy. For example, perhaps we just want to feel a certain way, and believe that we will feel this way if something takes place.​We may then find that there is another way to feel this way, or that we won’t feel this way through taking this route. But unless this question is asked, we are not going to be behaving like a conscious human being; instead, we will be caught up in all kinds of illusions.